05/24/2013 at 4:00 pm

Researchers have recently discovered that a Roman tomb in Carmona, Spain may have originally been a Mithraic temple years before. Photo courtesy of Universidad Pablo de Olavide.

Long thought to have been solely used as a burial site by ancient Romans in the 1st century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D., a tomb in the necropolis of Carmona, Spain (just outside of Sevilla) surprised researchers from Universidad Pablo de Olavide last week, who announced that the tomb was actually first used as a temple by the devotees of Mithraism, a cult that came to exist during the Roman empire.